


Though I Doubted Our Future

by yet_intrepid



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Captivity, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Prison, Sad Fíli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:04:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Elves come through to dim the lights, you lie back and tell yourself to sleep, for there is nothing else to do. You eat; you sleep; you hate. You eat, and watch the guards. Sleep, then examine the iron that keeps you in. And through it all, you fear for Kíli.</p>
<p>Eat. Sleep. Fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though I Doubted Our Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nimueailinen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimueailinen/gifts).



> Title from Josh Groban's "Gold Can Turn to Sand," which Julia introduced me to as the worst-ever Fili and Kili song. Thanks. Have a sad fic, Julia.

When the Elves come through to dim the lights, you lie back and tell yourself to sleep, for there is nothing else to do. You eat; you sleep; you hate. You eat, and watch the guards. Sleep, then examine the iron that keeps you in. And through it all, you fear for Kíli.

Eat. Sleep. Fear.

But as you close your eyes, something shifts in your core. The world turns unsteady and cold. For Thorin will not deal with the Elven-king, and though the iron and stone that keep you prisoner are no Dwarven craft, your hands and your anger cannot rend them apart.

And you think: this is where you die. Where Kíli dies.

This is where you lose him. After all the striving, after the wolves and the storms and the long, long nights. After the flames.

After everything, you lose him here.

You can see yourself, then—Balin’s age, or older, and frail. Your white beard matted. You see Kíli, too, his beard finally grown in over sunken cheeks, pale skin. You see his eyes blank and cast down as the red-haired Elf passes.

You see him as a toddler, impossible to keep still on a chair, and then you see him confined to a life of stillness in body and spirit. You see him as a child, free with his words to friend or stranger, and then you see him sentenced to solitude and silence.

You see him new-born. And you see him dying, caught by some Elvish disease and unattended. Ill from grief. Old and infirm and separated from you these hundred years.

And you want nothing more than your mother, to tell you your fears are baseless, that you have failed no one, that Kíli is safe abed across the room. But your mother is endless leagues away, and Kíli is going to rot away and die.

This is how you lose him, this slow cruel decline.

Rest far out of reach, you turn over and reach for the nearly-empty cup of water left in the corner. Eat, sleep, fear.


End file.
